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W. Schütz
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PostPosted: Mon 13 Mar, 2006 2:30 am    Post subject: How to carry a danish two-hander, scabbard or 'naked'?         Reply with quote

How did the carrying device look for a sword like this? Was it carried on the back for transportation and just leaned on the shoulder in the field perhaps? Would imagen having a sword like the Dane around your waist would be tricky..
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Martin Wallgren




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PostPosted: Mon 13 Mar, 2006 3:04 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

How about rings?

I´ve heard there was custom to carry swords of that size in two rings attached to a baldric or a belt. At least when in armour.

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W. Schütz
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PostPosted: Mon 13 Mar, 2006 3:24 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Martin Wallgren wrote:
How about rings?

I´ve heard there was custom to carry swords of that size in two rings attached to a baldric or a belt. At least when in armour.


Hmm yea that sounds like an idea. I would like to see how that looks, sounds kinda odd to me.
Im also trying to figure out how to wear one when moving about, the idea of a naked blade smacking against castle-walls while carried is not so plesant...
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Chuck Russell




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PostPosted: Mon 13 Mar, 2006 4:11 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

being that a true dane axe is about as big as a person for the shaft, over teh shoulder is prob the best way to go if your walking around with it. i dont know of any viking finds with rings yet. a dane axe isnt something one would carry around with him all of the time. if he was raiding it might be something he used for small periods of time and left it on the boat at others. i figure teh saxons during 1066 just carried theres in their arms when running from london to stamford then to battle(hastings)
there werent any wagon trains or pack horses we know about.

and to the castle walls bit.?

make a leather sheath for the face of the axe. if your worried it will come off, make a strap from teh face around the handle and tie or buckle on the far side.
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Martin Wallgren




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PostPosted: Mon 13 Mar, 2006 4:21 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Chuck Russell wrote:
being that a true dane axe is about as big as a person for the shaft, over teh shoulder is prob the best way to go if your walking around with it. i dont know of any viking finds with rings yet. a dane axe isnt something one would carry around with him all of the time. if he was raiding it might be something he used for small periods of time and left it on the boat at others. i figure teh saxons during 1066 just carried theres in their arms when running from london to stamford then to battle(hastings)
there werent any wagon trains or pack horses we know about.

and to the castle walls bit.?

make a leather sheath for the face of the axe. if your worried it will come off, make a strap from teh face around the handle and tie or buckle on the far side.


Ah! but I thought he refered to a sword of the late 15th c scandinavian style of long very tapering almost estoc form, like the Albion Next Gen. Dane.

Sorry if I was out on thin ice!

Martin

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Wolfgang Armbruster





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PostPosted: Mon 13 Mar, 2006 4:28 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Martin Wallgren wrote:
Chuck Russell wrote:
being that a true dane axe is about as big as a person for the shaft, over teh shoulder is prob the best way to go if your walking around with it. i dont know of any viking finds with rings yet. a dane axe isnt something one would carry around with him all of the time. if he was raiding it might be something he used for small periods of time and left it on the boat at others. i figure teh saxons during 1066 just carried theres in their arms when running from london to stamford then to battle(hastings)
there werent any wagon trains or pack horses we know about.

and to the castle walls bit.?

make a leather sheath for the face of the axe. if your worried it will come off, make a strap from teh face around the handle and tie or buckle on the far side.


Ah! but I thought he refered to a sword of the late 15th c scandinavian style of long very tapering almost estoc form, like the Albion Next Gen. Dane.

Sorry if I was out on thin ice!

Martin


He did. The Topic is about those Danish two-handers, not Dane Axes Happy
Wasn't there a Landsknecht mercenary who fought in Denmark and Sweden? I think he made some drawings where people carried those swords in a normal scabbard hanging from a belt. I think made some remarks about how strange it looked when the very long grips were banging against the body.
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W. Schütz
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PostPosted: Mon 13 Mar, 2006 4:30 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

There where many german swords-for-hire fighting for the danish in Sweden. And quite many illustrations of those landsknechts especially, fighting simple farmers still wearing sallets whilst these guys had their flamboyant clothing and tweihanders.
But where there ever scabbards made for swords of that size? I mean a scabbard longer then a normal 1 1/2 hander would look pretty odd ehy..?
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Martin Wallgren




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PostPosted: Mon 13 Mar, 2006 4:57 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

The blade on the A. NG Dane isnt going to be that long I think. If one suppose the conceptdrawings are roughly in scale it´s going to be a total lenght of under 150 cm and the blade around 110 cm. But still it is quite long.

BTW here is a picture of Paul Dolstein, a landskecht fighting in Sweden 1502, of a farmersoldier.



 Attachment: 73.02 KB
folk1.gif


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W. Schütz
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PostPosted: Mon 13 Mar, 2006 5:07 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Yep thats the one i was thinkning of..awesome pictures those. They speak more then any weakhearted socialistic *Jan Guillou-"history" show ever will..;/



* (Jan Guillou - French/Sami history-hack active in Sweden...)
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Martin Wallgren




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PostPosted: Mon 13 Mar, 2006 5:13 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Yepp, they do!

I´m in the finishing state of a replica of the gear of one of those young fightingboys. Will put up pics in a other thread this week. (Still dont have the helmet though.)

Martin

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W. Schütz
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PostPosted: Mon 13 Mar, 2006 5:33 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Martin Wallgren wrote:
Yepp, they do!

I´m in the finishing state of a replica of the gear of one of those young fightingboys. Will put up pics in a other thread this week. (Still dont have the helmet though.)

Martin


Are you getting a poor-mans fighting outfit? Schysst. Most people, me as well, tend to go for the fully armoured welthy people when getting a kit.
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Daniel Staberg




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PostPosted: Mon 13 Mar, 2006 6:10 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Looking at contemporary artwork as well as a few documents such large swords be they Dane style or 'Zweihanders' would be carried with a scabbard. Most images show them simply carried across the shoulder in the same way as a pike or a polearm.

Wouldn't say that there are 'many' pictures of Landsknechts fighting Swedish yeoman soldiers since there are exactly two of them , both by Paul Dolnstein. None of his 'Swedish' images show Zweihanders in use, it's all katzbalgers, pikes and halberds, indeed I can't find an actual zweihander in any of his drawings.
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Russ Ellis
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PostPosted: Mon 13 Mar, 2006 6:12 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Someone posted this picture a while ago...

The landsnecht have scabbards on the swords that they are carrying over thier shoulders...

TRITONWORKS Custom Scabbards
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W. Schütz
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PostPosted: Mon 13 Mar, 2006 6:27 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Daniel Staberg wrote:

Wouldn't say that there are 'many' pictures of Landsknechts fighting Swedish yeoman soldiers since there are exactly two of them , both by Paul Dolnstein. None of his 'Swedish' images show Zweihanders in use, it's all katzbalgers, pikes and halberds, indeed I can't find an actual zweihander in any of his drawings.


I did not mean there are many pics of them fighting swedes, just many pics in general of flamboyant landsknechts with their big swords.
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Martin Wallgren




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PostPosted: Mon 13 Mar, 2006 8:54 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

W. Stilleborn wrote:
Martin Wallgren wrote:
Yepp, they do!

I´m in the finishing state of a replica of the gear of one of those young fightingboys. Will put up pics in a other thread this week. (Still dont have the helmet though.)

Martin


Are you getting a poor-mans fighting outfit? Schysst. Most people, me as well, tend to go for the fully armoured welthy people when getting a kit.


Off course I do! It´s much cooler and it is a good representation of how most soldiers probaly looked. Most of the dying and fighting where por footsoldiers.

Wink

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Wolfgang Armbruster





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PostPosted: Mon 13 Mar, 2006 10:56 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

@Martin Wallgren: Yes, Dolnstein was the guy I was thinking of. Thx a lot for posting that picture. The drawing is quite crappy (albeit much better than anything I am able to fabricate Laughing Out Loud ) but one can clearly see the long hilts of the large Danish (or Swedish in this case) longswords. Looks pretty odd. They must have been a nuisance for the soldiers to wear, at least when in massed pike-formations with little or no room between the men. Nevertheless I think these swords look just great.

@Russ Ellis: IIRC that pic is a woodcut by Albrecht Dürer, part of the Triumphzug he made Emperor Maximilian. There are a couple of other woodcuts depicting soldiers with harkebuses, Messer-like swords in combination with shields and pikemen. That's the only picture I know of where Zweihänders are actually carried in scabbards but given the frequent accuracy of Dürer that must have been a common practice.
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Blaz Berlec




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PostPosted: Mon 13 Mar, 2006 12:41 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

This is from that site of Russians reenacting Swiss Merv Cannon posted about. I don't know what manuscript is this, but it's perhaps 15.th century. Some of the images show soldiers with very large swords, or at least swords with very long grips. They seem longer than the usual one and a half swords:

Link to the gallery: http://www.bern.ru./v2/?t=gallery&ig=33&gp=1

Several images. Sorry for the size:

















Extant 15th Century German Gothic Armour
Extant 15th century Milanese armour
Arming doublet of the 15th century
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Chuck Russell




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PostPosted: Mon 13 Mar, 2006 4:44 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

ah hell, totally misread the title. sorry chaps.

still think the two handers would be carried with no scabbard over teh shoulders. lots of them seem to be parade swords too.
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Wolfgang Armbruster





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PostPosted: Tue 14 Mar, 2006 4:16 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Chuck Russell wrote:
ah hell, totally misread the title. sorry chaps.

still think the two handers would be carried with no scabbard over teh shoulders. lots of them seem to be parade swords too.


Agreed, swords of the dimensions of true Bidenhänders could not be carried in a scabbard hanging from your waist.. However, the so-called Danish two-handers seem to have been of a smaller size (I could be wrong on that though). I think there was a topic on Albion's Dane where Peter Johnsson posted some very interesting infos.
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Klaus J




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PostPosted: Tue 14 Mar, 2006 7:31 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Heres a picture from the front page on a book I own.

http://peecee.dk/?id=32018

http://peecee.dk/?id=32019

Where youn can se the sword being carried on the shoulder.

best regard Klaus
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